


It Was Supposed to be Taco Night

by alivehawk1701



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hallucinations, Jealousy, M/M, Mental Instability, Sick Will Graham, Someone Help Will Graham, Trauma, Winston is Key in All Things, as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29988198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alivehawk1701/pseuds/alivehawk1701
Summary: Set in the three year gap, Will and Molly are supposed to be enjoying taco night but the past, and encephalitis, make an unexpected visit regardless of their domestic bliss. Molly is forced to realize, there is a lot he hadn't told her.
Relationships: Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56





	It Was Supposed to be Taco Night

**Author's Note:**

> Blimey, to any regualr readers of my fics, this is in third person *shock* thought I'd give it a go. Always been curious, and loved, and fics that fill in that gap of time when Will and Molly where together. Enjoy, see you at the end!

Molly flicked the heat off on the stove, set the wooden spoon aside, and watched a stray piece of ground beef fall onto the floor. It left streaks of grease and chili powder across the linoleum which she dove after before the dogs could get it.

As she did so, shooing away Meatball, her small always hungry pug mix she called to the adjoining living room, “Two minute warning! Time’s almost up!”

“Okay!” she heard shouted back. She tried not to roll her eyes or feel impatient at needing to again remind him. Just took a deep breath and reached into the fridge to grab salsa, sour cream and the guacamole she’d made. Not a usual topping on taco night but the grocery store had astonishingly had avocados in stock and she couldn’t resist. Seeing Wally eat anything green that wasn’t a lime or green apple flavoured sweet was always a plus in her book. And Will liked it. Meatball waddled off, likely to join the other dogs who typically made the screened in porch off the side of the house their home this time of night

Wally was allowed an hour of video games after homework and before dinner. She’d caved on getting him the game but refused to allow him to have the game counsel in his room. No matter how much he begged. She hated the noise but it was better than having him isolated in his room. She knew he’d inevitably become a despondent, hormone crazed teenager, no matter what she did or how much she’d rather he didn’t, but for now, he was still the same little boy she’d held close to her breast and comforted through sleepless nights and skinned knees.

Will would come back to the house shortly. Should come back to the house shortly. He’d been in the barn most of the day. And yesterday. Working on that boat. The boat that every time she saw it was hidden under a thick canvas tarp. He’d been distant lately. She figured it was just the shortening days of fall. He’d go out for long walks or just be out tinkering in the barn for hours and hours then come back in, nose red and cold and kiss her quickly with some noncommittal answers about how the project was progressing. Maybe that was what was making her impatient but she decided to try to talk to him about it later. Give him an opportunity to explain. Help her understand what was drawing him away from her lately. 

Molly began getting water and shouted again, “That’s two minutes. Off! Now.”

She heard the music stop and smiled. At least for today, she thought with sad achievement, I’ve still got some pull.

Tacos were easy. Typical. Over the last six months, since Will had moved in, she wanted routine. Normalcy. For him. He seemed to appreciate it. She knew he needed something, maybe a lot of things, when they first met. But she also knew he would never ask for them. She hated the over apt, almost lazy metaphor, but once she’d thought it, she couldn’t not see him that way. Like one of his strays. Circling her offerings with cautious steps and ears laid back to his skull. And with every step of his paws closer she could see just how bedraggled he was, how much he needed someone to care for him. Someone to wash his fur, give him a place to feel safe and loved, a reason to stop running. And as soon as he’d allowed her to touch him, hunched back on slinking haunches, he’d melted into the warmth and appreciated every moment. She wondered if he’d sensed the same from her back then. Not that it was that long ago. 

Yet there were still times, maybe more so maybe now, when he held his snout to the wind and looked like he was remembering some far away place. Somewhere he’d run from. Somewhere he missed.

Appropriate, yes. And for her part she’d needed to save someone too. Especially when she couldn’t save the last one. Will was incapable of lying to her. She knew that. Hoped that. His heart at times was laid open to her and their intimacy seemed based on the fact that she didn’t abuse that. Like a dog rolled over on his back. 

She set another bowl of salsa on the table. Right next to the mild salsa. She wasn’t a fan of spice but Will could never get enough. He made Wally laugh with how much salsa he put on his taco without gasping at the heat. Always accepting the dare, drawing pure unadulterated amazement from Wally eating whole jalapenos and even, one time, a habanero. 

When the outdoor motion light flickered on her eyes lifted to the front windows and when the door flung open she was just setting a bowl of shredded cheese on the table.

Will burst through the door, “Lights off!” he was out of breath like he’d run from the barn, “Now,” he hissed.

Molly felt her mouth drop open, looking from Will to Wally who had just stepped into the kitchen from the living room with a confused frown across her brow. She caught herself almost laughing, hand on her hip, “Candle lit taco night?”

“Someone’s in the yard,” he said with unwavering urgency as he lunged for the lamps in the living room, hunched over, almost crawling to be clear of the windows, “Molly!” he implored, eyes finding hers for only a moment as they were all suddenly bathed in darkness.

“Mom?” Wally asked, quickly coming to stand next to her.

“Someone in the yard?” Molly asked, confused, hand dropping from her hip, “Who? Sure it’s not a neighbor?”

“No!” Will was standing to the side of the door, back against the wall, face drenched in sweat. At finally seeing his face Molly only took an instant, a sudden terrifying instant, to realize that this wasn’t a joke. All the things Will had left unsaid over the last year, all the things he was afraid of, tried to keep from her, all gathered into one stomach clenching moment of realization that maybe, somehow, time had run out. Maybe this was it. 

She grasped Wally’s shoulders, “Go to your room. Lock the door. Hide in the closet,” when he froze just as she had she pushed at his shoulders, “Go, baby, go, go.”

Wally moved quickly, faster and with more focus than she ever would have hoped for her child, as she flicked off the light in the kitchen. Will was still in position to the side of the door, arms to his side, the row of dark windows behind him only lit by the moon.

Molly sank down to crouch under the table and asked in a forced whisper, “Will, what’s happening? Who’s out there?”

He shook his head in the dim light and she felt herself start to shake with fear at the taunt, panicked expression on his face, “I’m not sure. I’m not sure.”

Okay, she thought, someone dangerous. Not a neighbor. She cast her eyes out the window, looking for a figure, someone, anything, but didn’t see anyone. She saw Will had his pocket knife in his palm, held open to his chest. The same knife he’d pulled from his pocket last Christmas unwrapping presents. Always on him just in case. She’d had a rifle. It’d been her dad’s. She only shot it once when a bear had ambled too close to the house. And when Will had moved in he’d insisted she’d get rid of it. When she’d asked why all he’d said was the possible danger of a lost hungry bear wasn’t worth the danger a rifle could cause.

“Should I call 911?” she asked from her hiding place under the table. Her phone was on the kitchen counter.

“No,” he said with certainty and she shivered. He leaned to the side to peer around the windowframe and mouthed a clenched, “Fuck,”

Molly forced her breaths into even steady ins and outs and hated the silence. Waited for some sort of explosion. Whoever it was crashing through their door. A gunshot. Couldn’t stand the not knowing. Movement almost made her jump and it was Winston, emerging from their bedroom, walking slowly into the living room followed by Buster. They both stretched and wagged their tails, watching Will with a sleepy curiosity. She looked to Will who hadn’t seen them. Didn’t seem to notice them. If someone was outside they’d be barking. They somehow knew when the mailman was down their long driveway.

Winston whined and padded toward Will who hadn’t moved from his post. 

“Will,” Molly called in a hoarse whisper, “I don’t think,” she stood up.

“No, get back down,” Will begged, “Don’t let him see you!” 

Tears were wet down his cheeks. She knelt back down and looked over her shoulder to her phone. 911? Was someone out there? What was going on? Who? Who was it? 

Will chanced another look out the window and Molly couldn’t help but notice the knife shaking in his hand. Several heated moments passed, moments of indecision and confusion, where Will gasped for air and she bit her lower lip in her teeth.

Will suddenly fell back from the window and stumbled to the ground then back up, the knife skidding over the floor. He lunged after it and rose to the balls of his feet, bathed in moonlight, shouting, not to her, “How did you find me?” 

The door hadn’t opened. No one had entered their home. As Molly watched Will extended the knife toward whoever he was talking to, “Get out of here. Leave. Leave us alone.”

“Will,” Molly implored and his eyes shot to her, wide, far away, horrified. He backed up a step. Two. Had started to shake. His feet shook out from under him and he couldn’t regain his footing.

“Hannibal, please,” he sobbed from on his knees, face lifted to the moonlight, “Don’t hurt them.”

The name rang in low resonating tones through the air, deep and dark and sharp throughout the darkness. Molly stood up. It went unnoticed by Will. She took a step closer and was matched step by step by Winston who had his tail low to the ground, a concerned whine deep in his throat.

“Please,” Will said, sinking from his knees all the way to the ground, “No. No. I didn’t know that, no, I--I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” his face fell into his hands, “I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. Sorry.”

Molly and Winston reached him and when she placed a hand on his shoulder he quickly and frighteningly swung the blade toward her and it met cloth and flesh, making her fall back to the floor. Her hand shot to her arm and came back bloody and shaking as her frightened eyes saw Will’s raised and threatening body in front of her. Winston lunged between them, moving fast in the corner of her eye, and pressed his body into Will. She heard a snap of teeth and the scraping of Winston’s nails on the floor before Will’s pale hands found his fur, grasping onto him like someone being pulled under crashing waves. The sound of the knife hitting the floor was followed by the muffled sounds of his cries into Winston’s fur.

“Will,” Molly gasped, reaching for him with one bloody palm to join Winston next to him on the floor, “Will,” she gathered Will into her arms and he collapsed into her convulsing with sobs, “There’s no one there, Will. My sweet man, there’s no one there.”

For a few agnozied moments his tear streaked face lifted to hers and then crumpled into despair, “Molly,” he moaned, like he was seeing her for the first time, and she couldn’t stop him shaking.

“You’re home. I’m here. Winston’s here. It’s taco night,” she told him, running her hand up and down his back.

“He’s not there?” he asked into her shoulder, “Really?”

“There’s no one,” she said, kissing his brow, “Look at Winston, Buster, if someone was here they’d--” her words cut off and she couldn't finish them.

A wounded, pained groan left him and Winston shouldered his way forward to lick his face, “I can still hear him.”

Molly held him tighter and shut her eyes. Hannibal. Hannibal Lecter. The man he never talked about. The man she knew only from the papers. The man that he knew so very well. She felt tears flood her own eyes as she helplessly thought of all the articles she’d read, had to read, had to know if he didn’t tell her. Nothing was clear. Not when the articles said one thing, terrible things about murder and cannabalism and deception, then Will, who she thought she knew, wanted to know, said something, in his silence, totally different. She felt small and incompetant next to these things. These dark things. These things that followed Will to her doorstep. Haunted his heart.

She also remembered reading about an illness. Something that messed with his brain. More things he hadn’t talked about but that she’d read. In the moment she couldn’t remember what it was called. She smoothed a hand over his hair, “I think you’re just sick, honey,” she stammered, the searing heat of his skin almost burning her hands, “I think we need to get you to the doctor.”

Will pulled himself from her shoulder and wiped a hand across his nose, eyes bouncing and shaking like they were broken underneath wet eyelashes. His eyes kept flickering to the distance, looking at something, someone who wasn’t there and he squeezed his eyes shut, “I can’t,” he shook his head, “I can’t make it stop,” he said weakly.

“It’s not your fault,” Molly said, trying to pull his face to hers, “We’ll get you help.”

He fell back, hands meeting the side of his head, over his ears, no more words leaving his lips.

“I’m going to call 911,” she said, pushing her foot under her.

“No, no,” Will grasped at her arm, “Don’t leave me.”

She hesitated, thinking about how long the ambulance would take to get here, just how little she could do to help him herself, how little she understood. Winston hadn’t left them and in her absence licked and huffed about Will’s feverish face until Will held onto him, anything.

Molly watched this and in the same stalled moment, where she couldn’t hear what Will was hearing, asked with gathered, agonizing need, “What’s he saying to you?”

Will looked up into a face that wasn't there and that she couldn’t imagine. Was he threatening him? Her? Was he telling him that he would come for him? What could he be telling Will that hurt him so much? Or what did Will’s mind imagine him saying? Will’s face fell to his chest and he started to shake again with silent sobs and Winston pressed closer to catch the tears in his fur. 

She immediately felt a crushing guilt at having asked. She wanted to blame it on shock but she knew it was deeper than that. So much of what he hadn’t said, didn’t say, left bare in crisis. She’d been left to worriedly fill in the blanks on her own after every half answer and well meaning change of subject. Especially when it came to him. Hannibal. It was impossible to feel jealous of a man that, for all she understood, only caused him pain. But she did. A life past. Claws dug deep in whatever desire Will had to move forward, beyond all of it.

When it was clear Will wasn’t going to answer, tell her what he was hearing or seeing she felt her chin quiver. Something about his words, his imploring posture and regretful words seeped in grief made her feel slashed and bloodied more than Will’s knife ever could have. All the pieces seemed to come together, the last pieces of the puzzle, squinting at a bedside clock to see the time late at night; this was heartbreak. It’s always been heartbreak. She set her jaw and didn’t want to, didn’t have time to think about any of this beyond getting him better. Had she really believed he had moved on? Could she have been so stupidly blinded by hope? Their small haven was suddenly burning and flooded with all he’d tried to leave behind. She chose, in that moment, to believe in the man, the man she loved, to believe that he really truly wanted to leave it all behind and said, “We can drive to the hospital.”

Will might have nodded, breath still coming in gasps somewhere past panic but nowhere near calm, “I think it’s,” he looked up from Winston’s fur, “A relapse, I dunno.”

“It’s okay,” she said, afraid to touch him again as she felt blood hot on the wound of her arm, “We’ll get you help. Get you medicine. It’ll be okay. It’s not your fault,” she reached for the knife on the floor, folded it, and put it in her pocket, “It’s not real. You’re here. I’m here. All you need is here.”

Will didn’t look at her, still bathed in moonlight, still looking into the distance as his eyes slid shut, “All I need,” he said into the distance like an echo.

**Author's Note:**

> I very much understand the need to move on, move past, and Will and Molly's relationship was real, and valid, though doomed. And, yes, encephalitis can reoccur, eh? 
> 
> And sorry, Meatball likely isn't one of her dogs, little liberty there. But of course, Winston is the best and what would any of us do without him, helping Will and Molly, bless him. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, leave a message, let me know if my writing in third person is shit or not, lol.


End file.
